


Anchor

by Mordsek (Rugiku)



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Existentialism, Fairy Tale Elements, Gratuitous Self-Indulgence, M/M, Mythical Elements, Probably., RNGesus hates VC and DE much like it hates me in-game, transformative work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6830389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rugiku/pseuds/Mordsek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It is going to be 99.985 percent an illusion. None of it is real, except for Add,” Seraph tells him, and Raven thinks to himself how Add had always been a little unreal anyway.</p><p>Dimension jumping takes its toll on Add and now it's a game of whether Raven has enough sanity for the time-space gashapon machine to get him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MysteryProf](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=MysteryProf).



_why_

 

_did you tell me to find you_

 

_when you are the ship_

 

_and i your anchor,_

  


_while_

 

_you were ripped apart in the tempest_

 

_and i was safe_

 

_at the bottom_

 

_of_

 

_the_

 

_sea_

 

* * *

  


They manage to cobble together a device that uses a dissected copy of Chung's cannon, a few pieces of Eve's giant nasod guards, and a handful of demon soul cores gathered from the hearts of Sander’s godforsaken creatures. It's not pretty and it works barely but that's enough.

“It is going to be 99.985 percent an illusion. None of it is real, sans Add,” Seraph tells him, and Raven thinks to himself how Add had always been a little unreal anyway. “So it would be prudent of you to retrieve him as soon as possible before you are consumed by the dimension.”

 

* * *

 

 _“Remind me why_ **_I’m_ ** _doing this again?”_  

_“If it were anyone else, you’d do it anyway, man.”_

_Raven levels a stare at Infinity Sword, stress fraying the edges of his sanity. “This wouldn’t have_ **_happened_ ** _to anyone else.”_

_“Yeah, but it wouldn’t be the team if one of us is dead, right? Besides we need him--”_

_“Why do you care anyway? He likes you the least.”_

_“Well excuse me for trying to make sure we survive the next damn wave of attack--!”_

 

* * *

  

Crimson Avenger agrees to come with him, mouth pulled in grim humour.

“I'll be the one keeping your mind connected to this world.” She says and Raven can hear the unspoken _and make sure you do your damn job_ so he doesn't question it because no one questions Elesis anymore. Not even her brother.

At the last moment, Asura puts a seed of energy into Raven's head.

“Should help with finding our boy, but it also packs a little punch. Just in case you run across some nasties.” She says with a tired wink.

He isn't sure if it's Eun or her talking because Seraph drops them and they fall like a bowling ball off a bridge. For one terrifying kaleidoscope moment, Veteran Commander doubts that this would even work at all and then he hits the floor of the new world and he can feel the jarring echo of having his head slammed into marble. So much for _‘having the best mental fortitude’_ if it meant having his brains dashed against stone.

When he can manage to crack his eyes open, the first thing he sees swimming into view are huge towering ceilings of dark crystals all pointing down at him like some mad semblance of accusatory teeth, and ribbed support beams that glow a deep, dark purple that remind him of the crystal that Esper implanted in his nasod arm to siphon off the wasted overheat energy months and months before, when they were desperately trying to hold off the demons at Velder's door.

 _He would like this place_ , he thinks numbly and then corrects himself. He does. Does enjoy this. This is a world that a shard of Add's soul took refuge in like a bird in a storm except it’s more like a baby chick thrown into a maelstrom and finding refuge in a kennel of dogs.

He remembers Eve telling him in her emotionless voice before, that it should be simple enough to go into the pocket dimension and retrieve Add’s soul. Raven is reluctant to pin his hopes on Seraph’s logical optimism, even as he breathes in the musky air and admits that _alright, maybe the damn machine did its job._ Then he realises what is very wrong with this image.

It feels too large.

He can hear the ocean and smell salt in the perfumed air. The marble feels too real against his bare skin, and he can see the dust motes in the still air. The world feels timeless.

He feels Elesis kick his leg and he looks over.

“I think we're in a lot more trouble than we thought.” She mutters and Raven is inclined to agree.

When he gets to his feet, he notices the clothes first. His sword is missing and at his side is a small brass key instead. His clothes are a heavy tapestry of silk and satin embroidered with gold and encrusted with jewels that he can't name. Rings weigh his fingers down and he can feel the extra weight of jewellery braided into his hair. In all, he feels significantly uncomfortable in what is obviously a king’s garb.  

Elesis looks a tad bit more understated than him, but not by much. She's carrying a long-bladed spear that's thick and polished at the shaft and studded with precious gems at the pommel. The blade is long, gold and shines wickedly in the soft light. Her armour is thick leather and wood covered with patterned silk stretched over the curved planes of padding. Her hair is also curled delicately around a circlet of silver, spilling over her back in a smooth fall of red as she moves quietly on slippered feet.

He thinks she looks as resplendent and deadly as she did in leather and her old sword.

“Well?” She asks during the moment where Raven is staring for too long. “Where are we supposed to go, oh king?”

Raven ignores the jab and focuses - time to put Asura's arcane magicks to the test.

His feet start moving and he starts walking towards one of the small corridors dotted around the chamber that's lit by a small sconce that barely illuminates the floor. Crimson Avenger follows silently and they walk along dark halls that twist and flicker with light.

The eerie silence begins to get to rattle Raven. Where are the people? Why does this illusion look so real? What is Add hiding in these walls?

He almost walks past the dark door set deep in the stone while in his thoughts and only Elesis's soft hiss at him to stop makes him notice. When he tries the door, it's locked. Glancing at Elesis, he curls his fingers around the key he has, inserts it and let's the door creak open.

Inside is a small area that's obvious it was made to be lived in. There is a small but comfortable looking bed that would not be out of place in the barracks that were provided to them in Velder. The walls are a demure off white and there are small light fixtures set into the walls. A square table sits surrounded by three chairs at the opposite end of the room with an opening to a stone balcony. A light breeze drifts through and the sheer curtain lifts to reveal an expanse of quiet water.

Elesis walks to the railing and looks back at him.

“Rocks,” she says and he knows there's no getting out that way.

There is a plain wooden door that leads to a washroom and Raven takes some time to test the reality given to him. The water is cold, almost glacial, and it nearly hurts when he splashes some on his face. But it wakes him up some and he can no longer deny that this place exists. This really was a world that is real. Sure, a pocket dimension that is likely all made of holograms but _convincing_ holograms. Scarily convincing reality simulators.

Raven swipes some water away from his eyes with his human forearm and chuckles bitterly. Add really was the kind of person to have the extraordinary happen to him by his own design or not.  
When Raven exits the bathroom, he turns his attention to the final door he hasn't opened yet. Elesis is standing by it, caution in her eyes and Raven unlocks it and opens it in one go.

Inside is obviously meant to be a king's room - _his_ room - because there's a huge four poster bed near a long window offering a beautiful view of... more ocean. The white cotton curtains stir lightly in the slight evening breeze. He thinks that being this close to the sea, there should definitely be more wind, more birds, but it’s quiet like the world is in between breaths.

The sound of water gently lapping at the stones at the foot of the structure wafts through the window along with a stronger scent of sea and salt. Deep, comfortable armchairs sit opposite the bed and there is a small hearth with a kettle quietly bubbling away. A small hollow in the wall has tea and cups stored within and Raven wonders if this room is really meant for a recluse rather than a king (and he is far from being a king).

Then he sees the wicked blade stabbed in the floor. Its red blade is wedged among countless other notches in the ground.

Raven moves closer to the weapon and reaches for the pommel but sees slight movement in the corner of his eye. All his instincts scream at him to grab the scimitar and swing it at whatever else was in the room but the shapeless figure slowly focuses itself into a veiled person, curled up and pressed against the oak headboard.

They are covered head to ankle in soft, flowing cotton in the same cream as the curtains but he can see the soft curve of a bare shoulder and the gentle slope of an ankle bound by a padded manacle that is roped to one of the bed frames.

Raven quickly realises that the stranger is afraid and slowly backs away from the sword, feeling the person's eyes follow him. Was this person a piece of Add's soul? Or maybe it was just a hologram that was hiding it.

"Who are you?" He asks as gently as he can and the figure unwinds a little.

The person doesn't answer the question, but points at an armchair. "Let me tell you a story."

The voice shocks Raven because it sounds like the voice of a gentle woman rather than Add, as he was hoping. He follows her word regardless and settles into the chair and watches as the woman shuffles over to the other, rope unwinding as she walks.

"Once upon a time..."

The story is about two birds who are destined to only meet once a decade and she talks into the night, Raven making tea when the kettle boils over the low fire. Elesis turns up sometime and stands at the door, spear within reach, and listens to the story as well. The woman begins her next story early in the morning and Raven has lost all pretenses of questioning her because the story she weaves is rapturous in its own right.

When the sky lightens and the fire burns low, the woman finishes her sentence and stands.

"It seems I will have to stop for tonight." She says simply and returns to the bed. Raven sits dumbfounded that it really is almost dawn and they just wasted hours in their quest. Their quest with a time limit. Right, Esper was lying on a bunk like he's waiting for a coroner.

"Wait--" Raven starts, already on his feet.

"I will await your decision when I no longer have stories to tell."

And with that, the woman lies down on the bed and the curtains swing closed like a guillotine to the conversation. Elesis spares him a piteous look and turns back to her bed. The dawn sun illuminates the sky and he sits in the armchair again.

When Raven wakes next, Elesis is holding a tray of food and the curtains are still drawn around the master bed. Raising an eyebrow at the food, Elesis just shrugs.

“It was on the table when I woke up.'”

Raven decides to accept that explanation because his stomach growls and that ends the discussion.

The fruit is sweet and filling, and the bread is warm. Raven glances over at the silent cloth and wonders if the woman is willing to have food but he does not approach to ask.

The night begins when the curtains open around the bed and the woman slides out of the covers. She points at the chair and so another night of storytelling begins.

And so it goes night after night, half finished story leading into another before the sun rises when another meal magically appears on their table.

The stories every time the sun dips behind the molten horizon are always of strange things like young boys walking amongst talking flowers, gentle fae that mend the bones of the lost and injured, and kind gods of the forest that tend to the moss and trees.

It makes Raven want to scream.

“What are you doing?” He snaps at the storyteller one night not long but not shortly after Elesis and Raven arrive at the mind palace and she falls silent for a long while. “Why are you telling me these fairytales?”

“For you to understand,” she says simply and resumes the story.

Raven grips the armchair hard enough to gouge the hard wood and he storms off to the other room. Elesis is stretching inside and she looks up when Raven slams the door and locks it, throwing himself into a chair. The soft lilt of the woman's voice crawls through the wood and blows in through the window, following him and he wants to scratch at his ears until he's deaf to everything.

“Some things just need to be said.” Elesis murmurs, eyes not meeting his.

“Not you too.” He hisses back and rubs his temples.

 _Come find me_ echoes in his head and he struggles to not walk back in there and kill the woman with the red sword.

Nights and nights later, after fruitless attempts of escape through the winding halls of the castle, Raven resumes sitting by the storyteller as she speaks and it's like opening a book at a random page and expecting to understand the underlying message. He feels as if this entire event has been done before, said before, like an old fairytale he heard at his mother’s knee, but it escapes him and he has no choice but to continue listening.

During that time, the woman's voice has become raspier and it occurs to Raven that he has not seen her drink anything other than the tea he made her scores of nights ago.

(He offers her a drink and she shakes her head with a sense of urgency.)

Anxiety builds the more stories he listens to. The world feels less timeless and more on the cusp of breathing out and collapsing.

The nights get shorter, he feels, and the woman tells stories of villagers who suffer unrequited love and separation from sickness and death, and it suddenly occurs to him like a bolt from the blue that maybe these stories are memories of Add's past.

He decides to pay better attention.

On the evening of the middle of a story about a story about a child lost in a library stuck in time, Raven opens the door to see the woman sprawled unmoving on the floor. A sliver of moon hangs low over the dark horizon through the window.

He yells for Elesis and they pick the woman off the floor.

When the woman is sitting upright in her chair, he can hear the woman’s ragged breaths and the veil is dotted with blood.

“Please… sit…” She gasps as she slumps in her chair.

Raven and Elesis exchange looks and he hurries over to sit in his armchair. The moon is already high, almost at its zenith.

During the end of this story, Elesis leans over to whisper in his ear.

“I don’t understand how but time’s moving faster than when we got here. We don’t have any time--”

“My lord, this is my final story.”  


* * *

  

_There was once a King, one that was a great king, but his wife had committed a great sin against him._

_The King had no choice but see her be struck down._

_But the empire could not stand for a queenless king and so he was bound to take another wife._

_However, his suspicion and pain from his first dearly beloved wife haunted him, and he struck down the new bride with his sword. Then the next one, and the one after that, until there were no longer any young maidens whom he could wed and his blade was stained red with their blood._

_The King’s loyal servant, the Vicar finally offered up his only daughter, the last unwed woman of age. But his daughter had been damaged beyond words - defiled and twisted, an unruly child that lived only to read, to learn and ignore the world around her, a child of the sea._

_But a clever child._

_On the first night, the Vicar’s daughter told the King a story that had him lose all thought, murderous and otherwise, and then started another similarly riveting story but always stopped halfway when the sun rose. Refusing all of the King’s pleas for the next part of the story, the girl had preserved her own life by presenting him with her life’s work._

_And so, this continued for a thousand nights until she had no more stories to tell, during which the King fell in love with the wild and untameable child, and finally wed her to the relief of the kingdom._

 

* * *

 

“Now, my lord,” The woman wheezes, clutching the arm of the chair as the sky lightens outside the window and the sound of waves rush in the background. “What do you have to tell me? What is your decision?”

Raven sits in stunned silence for a moment. What decision? What did he have to do? This was a test for Add’s soul fragment but he had no idea where to start. Hell, he wasn’t even paying attention for the most part. He felt he had learned nothing all the months he spent listening to the storyteller’s words.

Think! _Think!_ What has all of this listening taught you?

“Raven--”

“I know, shut up--”

The last story seemed too important to overlook and it fit the situation too well to deny - his clothes, the storyteller, the sword in the corner with its crimson blade as if it had been steeped in the blood of countless sacrifices.

He was the king and he’d heard nothing but aimless stories of childhood.

It suddenly occurs to him that perhaps the storyteller is not the child in the story at all. If anything, the child sounds like--

Outside, the sky is turning grey and the sea roars as it crashes against the rocks below.

Raven stands suddenly, surprise and a small grin on his face even as the high-backed chair topples. The storyteller had given away a little too much with that last story and he almost pats himself on the back for figuring it out. He lowers himself to one knee and takes a breath.

 _“Will you allow me your child’s hand in marriage?”_ He asks the storyteller, eyes bright with optimism.

 

* * *

 

The storyteller lifts her arms and in the dim light of pre-dawn, she pulls off her veil.

The semblance is undeniably striking because this woman with tumbling locks of white hair and teary, blue eyes coloured like the fire that sometimes flow out of his nasod arm looks almost _exactly_ like Add. The curve of the jaw and nose are the same as well as the little quirk of her mouth, as if she’s laughing at something beyond you, and the pointed ears; all were given to their lost time traveller, and Raven is suddenly reminded of Seris.

“You’re his mother.” He hears Elesis breathe behind him as the storyteller labouriously pushes the cloth into Raven’s hands with a weak nod.

The first rays of dawn race over the horizon and the castle rumbles loudly. They hear the crashing roar of empty castle rooms caving in and Elesis grabs Raven by the arm.

 _“Eve get us out!”_ He vaguely hears her scream as he calls out to the shadow of Add’s mother.

 _“I’ll find him! I promise!”_ He yells, throat raw because it’s like he’s watching another person he can’t save die and she says something back but it’s drowned by falling crystals and the tumultuous scream of waves but what he sees in her lips after the _please, save my baby_ makes him want to reach out and save _her_ (he can’t because Add’s mother is already dead just like Seris, this is just a shade, a falsity, as insubstantial as a reflection because he’s _holding what he needs and it beats against his hand like a struggling bird and everything_ **_hurts_ ** _)._

And then the universe caves in on itself and they blink out of existence like the life of someone precious.

 

* * *

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Raven.”

Overwhelming nausea and vertigo hits Veteran Commander as he comes to, and he has to sit up slowly to stop him from passing out again. Elesis isn’t faring much better from the sound of her pained breaths beside him. Elsword is next to her, saying something he can’t make out.

Gentle hands pass him sweet tea to drink and he accepts it gratefully.

“So, what was it like? Did you find what you needed?” Night Watcher wastes no time in trying to pry details out of the excursion and sits next to his bed as Raven sips the drink in a way that his tight throat can manage.

“Crazy. How long were we out?” He eventually rasps out and Rena hands him flat elven bread to pick at.

“You two were under for about half a day. We were pretty worried--”

“Rena, we spent a thousand days in there. Or-- close enough. It felt like it and--”

“We saw Add’s mother.”

Elesis’s voice is soft and fragile and it silences them all.

“You should go… do your thing. Return whatever you found in there.” Elsword says finally and Raven nods, tearing his eyes from the leaves swilling at the bottom of his cold mug.

 

* * *

 

When Raven stumbles into Add’s room, Ara is tending inside and she steps aside for him. He wonders how in nine hells he’s supposed to return something that’s insubstantial to the empty casket that Add is right now and Ara nudges him.

She taps her temple and he remembers her gifted seed and tries drawing on it here in reality. When he opens his eyes next, he can feel light and dark energies racing over his skin, Ara is a rippling well of power, and he can see the faded outline of the veil in his left hand. He lays it gently over Esper’s folded hands and it’s suddenly like years have been taken off his life because his knees buckle and Ara has to help lower him into the chair. The thin body on the bed takes a long, shuddery breath (the first real breath in what feels like years) as if he’s just waking from a dream.

“Mother?” He calls, light as a beat of a bird’s wing and Raven feels his throat close because the laughing trickster of the group isn’t meant to sound so _fragile_.

“She’s not here.” Raven grates out and Esper’s thulite eyes drift over to him, dreamlike and his brows crease in sleepy distress.

“Where--”

“She told me--” He has to steel his heart again, he thought he’d been able to do it when Seris disappeared from his life, but there’s corrosion already and his blood is leaking through like molten lead. “She asked me to tell you that she loves you.”

Add seems to consider it slowly in his groggy state.

“Will I… see her again…?” He’s drifting again, the part returned to him not mooring him to consciousness for long and Raven wants to grab him and shake him awake. “I can’t… remember…”

“Of course you’ll see her again!” He hisses and grips one of Esper’s hands in what he writes off as a fit of compassion. Or madness. He can feel the individual bones under Esper’s cool skin in his right hand, but his palm is warm enough and reassures Raven that the time traveller is alive. “You never forgot her.”

Add only makes a soft sound of noncommittal agreement that sleepy people do before he slips back into unconsciousness.

Ara places a gentle hand on Raven’s shoulder before leaving to get more tea.

She returns to see Raven carefully combing white hair out of Esper’s closed eyes with the tips of his left hand, through the crack between the door and the frame.

He’s still holding Esper’s hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Motivation is found in the strangest of places.
> 
> This chapter's story is based upon Sheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as an AU thought of late at night with Prof last year and turned into a monster of a story as mine always do. 
> 
> This is going to be a character study of both Diabolic Esper and Veteran Commander from my perspective so expect it to be weird as fuck.
> 
> I'm on tumblr: [writing and inspiration blog](http://melponene.tumblr.com)


End file.
